Before the estate lawyer even opened the leather folder in the Hollow Creek town hall, my twenty-seven-year-old sister Brenda leaned over and grabbed my wrist so hard her fingernails dug into my skin.
The Hollow Creek town hall doors swung shut behind us with a heavy thump. Main Street hummed with the usual mid-morning rhythm: a delivery truck idled outside Miller’s Hardware, children laughed from the elementary school playground down the block, and the smell of freshly brewed coffee drifted from the diner. Brenda didn’t seem to notice any of it. Her gaze was fixed on me, colder than the October air.
“Where was she, Brenda?” I asked, my voice tighter than I wanted it to be. “On October 14th? Where was Grandma Evelyn when that document was notarized?”
Brenda’s jaw tightened, but her eyes held no flicker of surprise. No hesitation. She simply reached into the oversized leather briefcase she carried everywhere, the same one she’d placed on the table inside.
She pulled out a manila folder, thick and crisply new, stamped with the county seal. It was the same beige color as the one Douglas had opened, but this one felt different, menacing.
“That’s enough questions, Toby,” she said, her voice low, almost a purr.
She snapped open the folder. My stomach dropped. I could make out the bold print on the top page: “Emergency Petition for Temporary Guardianship.” Below it, another official-looking document: “24-Hour Notice to Vacate.”
“You want to press this?” she continued, holding the papers up just enough for me to see my name, Toby Albright, typed right below the legal jargon. “You want to make a fuss with Mr. Douglas about dates?”
A sharp, unpleasant smell, like stale cigarettes and cheap cologne, wafted past as a man in a worn denim jacket walked by us, barely glancing our way. The mundane world continued around the precipice of my own collapse.
“This petition explains that as a minor with no immediate adult guardian, you’re a ward of the state,” Brenda said. Her fingernail, freshly manicured and painted a dark red, tapped the document.
“And this,” she slid the second page into view, “is your eviction from the cabin.”
The cabin. My home since Mom and Dad died, the place Grandma Evelyn had always insisted was mine.
“You have twenty-four hours to collect your belongings,” Brenda stated, her words slow and deliberate. “If you step foot near Douglas’s office again, or if I hear even a whisper of you questioning anything in this town, Deputy Hensley will be at your door.”
She held my gaze, unblinking. “Before sunset, Toby. He already has the juvenile removal order ready to go.”
My mind raced. Deputy Hensley, the local lawman. He always seemed to take Brenda at her word, seeing her as the responsible older sister. The idea of being thrown into state foster care, shipped off to Erie, flashed through my mind, a desolate, cold image. It was a place I’d only heard whispered about by kids who’d gotten into serious trouble.
I stood there, frozen, the sounds of Main Street suddenly muffled and distant. Brenda’s threat wasn’t just about money; it was about my entire existence, my place in Hollow Creek.
She slipped the papers back into her briefcase, clicking the clasp shut with a sharp, final sound.
“Think about it,” she said, then turned and walked toward her car, leaving me alone on the sunny sidewalk, feeling more isolated than I ever had in my life. Every shopkeeper, every passing face, seemed to look at me, assuming Brenda was my rightful guardian, my protector. They wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t believe me.
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